FINALLY it's cooling down here on the upper Rogue River. Mornings are now down to the mid-50's to very low 60's. Highs are still in the 80's but takes a goodly amount of time for it to get there. (FINALLY again!) Fish all day weather

Water flows have been bumped up to help the Fall Kings move into the upper river, this has also pulled up the Summer Runs that have been hanging down below Grants Pass.

If you don't have a boat hit the river up by the Hatchery or (strange as it may sound) in the water's fronting Grants Pass. You may have to Google this but 'Tussing Park' has several hundred yards of great fly water and I've never seen another person fishing there. A good road map will tell you where streets 'dead end' on the river. Would be unusual to see another fisherman save for folks in drift boats.

Anyway, if reasonable, now is the time to make the drive.

RETENTION OF KING SALMON! Read the game reg's as fishing for them in most of the upper Rogue is a 'no-no.' That said they take the same fly's as Steelhead (I've hooked them on as small as a #10 fly) so don't be the least bit surprised if your line stops and the rod begins to 'thump.'

What did that guy grab for you? Last month I caught my first king with that color here. Our kings are bright silver with blue / gray backs with spots when they come in pretty much like the fish below.

When they have been in the rivers about 2 weeks they begin to blush a little as seen below.

They go from that slightly pink flank to a deep burgundy color as they turn completely like the one below.

That red one was giving me a hard time and all I could do was to get a tail shot and a blurry one at that. I guestimate the weight on him at 40 - 45 pounds, it was a monster but very ripe. They came early and that fish was caught on my second swing the morning of June 16th.

Now those bronze guys like you have hold of there; I got one of them on August 10th at about 8:00 PM and until I had it in the net I had no idea of what it was. We don't get that color here so I was left guessing. I figured it was either a lost fish from down south or a small king that stayed at sea almost 2.5 months too long and came in with the silvers. It wasn't large and I haven't uploaded a picture to my gallery yet so can't post it. I had forgotten about it until I saw your post.

Hope you guys have a great fall season. I won't be down this year because I have a trip scheduled here for trout and I hope to get into some good ones. It'll be tough because the days grow 5 minutes and 45 seconds shorter every 24 hours now. The nights get cold and hours of light are short. There are however some opportunities to have extraordinary fishing if you can hack the weather.